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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23245318">The Darkest Family of the Mindscape</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshRain/pseuds/AshRain'>AshRain</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Dadceit and the little gremlins [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Sanders Sides (Web Series)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Dad Deceit, Dark Sides as Family, Gen, Injury Mentioned, Kid Anxiety | Virgil Sanders, Kid Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders, Slight Violence, Snake Deceit, child typical fighting, spider virgil</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 15:19:53</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,426</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23245318</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshRain/pseuds/AshRain</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Remus is a horrible little gremlin, Virgil is a smaller, slightly less horrible gremlin and Deceit is simply a tired Dad who didn't sign up for this. At all.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Anxiety | Virgil Sanders &amp; Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders &amp; Deceit Sanders</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Dadceit and the little gremlins [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1671343</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>387</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Darkest Family of the Mindscape</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Remus and Roman are ten years old,<br/>Logan is nine years old and<br/>Virgil is four years old</p>
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    <p>Ah. Peace and quiet. The birds were singing, the sun was shining, his coffee was hot and just the way he liked it. Deceit loved mornings like this one. He could just relax and enjoy the common room of the ‘dark’ mindscape to himself.<br/>
This was the reason that mornings were his favorite time of day. That and the evenings, once Virgil and Remus were in bed. If they went to bed at all, that is.</p><p>He was only on his second cup of coffee when he heard a door slam open upstairs. Loudly. That was his peaceful morning over.</p><p>Remus came crashing down the stairs in his typical fashion, sounding more like a herd of elephants than a ten year old.</p><p>“Hi Mom, I’m hungry.” the little side screeched, immediately going for the garbage to root through it for food. How he got into that habit, Deceit had no idea. He came with it already in place when he was yote into the dark side of Thomas’ mind.</p><p>“Remus, there is food literally on the counter next to you, get out of the trash!” Deceit scolded, pulling on Remus’ legs to pull him out of the bin. Then, as an afterthought he added “And I told you not to call me Mom!”</p><p>“But Roman calls Morality Dad! And he’s the only adult on the light side so why can’t you be Mom? You’re the one who takes care of us!”</p><p>He heaved a world weary sigh. Why couldn’t the kid just accept his request without questioning it. But oh well. Nothing he could do about it right now. Especially since Remus had found some food and was already scuttling off back upstairs again. Probably off to bother Virgil now. Chaos was about to become Even More ChaosTM. Great.</p><p>… Or not! Huh. the Mindsape stayed blessedly quiet instead of erupting into screaming as he had expected. Seemed like Remus just went to his own room.</p><p>Deceit wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth so he went back to enjoying his coffee. It seemed like his peaceful morning wasn’t quite over after all.</p><p>But eventually he finished his third cup and a bowl of cereal. Breakfast over, it was time to actually start the day so he got up again and cleaned his used dishes. Just for good measure he started up another pot of coffee. Maybe he could sneak a travel mug of it to the meeting he had with Morality.. Then he might be able to handle Remus and Roman together. Logic and Virgil were calm enough to not make the extra coffee necessary but the twins definitely did. </p><p>
  <em>Honestly<em> - and Deceit can’t believe he’s actually being honest - Deceit hated these get togethers but he knew it was important to Remus because the kid missed his brother, even though he liked to deny it. Also, Virgil always seemed to enjoy Logic reading to him.</em></em>
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</p><p>They would have to get moving relatively soon so technically he should be trying to get Virgil to eat something but the kid always got too anxious to eat before these meetings so Deceit had given up on it a while ago. He just made sure he had a snack once they got back.</p><p>
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</p><p>Just as he finished the dishes he heard a door open. Audible but not a slam. Two sets of feet rushed down the hallway, telling him that Remus had apparently not retreated to his room but to Virgil’s. It sounded like he had bothered Virgil into waking up early.</p><p>
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</p><p>Well, early for Virgil’s standards at least.</p><p>
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</p><p>“Leave me alone! Stop it, Remus. Stop pushing me!” Deceit heard Virgil say just before both boys yelped. Then he saw Remus tumble down the stairs with a mighty crash. He landed in a heap at the foot of the stairs. As soon as the crash had faded into silence there was the <em>tup tup tup<em> of Virgil’s footsteps descending the stairs and using Remus’ tummy as a launch pad, ramming his little foot right into the soft flesh as he ran towards Deceit.</em></em></p><p>
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</p><p>“He was trying to push me down the stairs, Dee!” He tattled, looking up at him with all his eight eyes as he tried to climb up his body. Deceit hoisted him up, balancing the four year old on his hip.</p><p>
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</p><p>“So you pushed him down the stairs instead, little spider? You’re all Fight and no Flight aren’t you? I would’ve thought you to be too little to do much of either.” He mused, walking over to the stairs to check on Remus. No injuries, just shock and a bit of windedness. “Have you learned your lesson about trying to go up against Fight or Flight yet?”</p><p>
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</p><p>“Absolutely not! I’ll get him one of these days! Just ‘cuz he’s got his animal already doesn’t mean he’s stronger than me. He’s tiny!” Remus insisted, getting up only to point his finger at Virgil threateningly.</p><p>
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</p><p>Deceit had the theory that Remus hadn’t developed his animal trait yet because he had spent spent half his life as a different side before that side split into Remus and Roman. It was… logical but that didn’t mean that Remus wasn’t salty about it.</p><p>
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</p><p>“Of course, Remus. But that will have to wait until later because we will have to leave soon or we’ll be late to our meeting with the others.”</p><p>
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</p><p>This got him a pout and a reluctant <em>fine.<em></em></em></p><p>
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</p><p>—</p><p>
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</p><p>They crossed the passageway between light and dark a good hour later, after forcing Remus into clean clothes and smudging black eyeshadow under Virgil’s two main eyes to hide his little spider eyes. No need for the light sides to know what Virgil presented as, after all. And no need to subject them to the abysmal smell of Remus’ week old clothing. Bad enough that he couldn’t force him to take a shower.</p><p>
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</p><p>Patton was in the common room already and called Logan and Roman down when he saw the other three enter.</p><p>
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</p><p>Roman and Logan came rushing down the stairs; Logan with a book and Roman with a wooden toy sword. The twins started wrestling the moment they were within reach of each other, very nearly bowling Logan over as well. He settled in with his back against the couch, next to Virgil who had curled up against the corner of the L-shaped couch.</p><p>
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</p><p>Deceit and Patton settled on the couch to ‘catch up.’</p><p>
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</p><p>“Soooo… How are things on your side of the mind?” Patton asked just like he always did.</p><p>
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</p><p>“Oh, you know. Terrible. Remus definitely settled on an animal. He’s been absolutely bearable.”</p><p>
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</p><p>“Oh. Okay. That’s good to hear. Maybe he’ll settle down in a bit.”</p><p>
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</p><p>Deceit only gave him an unimpressed look. Remus had and would never calm down. Even the thought of it was laughable.</p><p>
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</p><p>“…. Right. Okay. So. Logan’s been reading Harry Potter ever since you mentioned it last time. He decided to read it to Anxiety today since he liked it so much and noticed that Anx seems to like listening to him read.”</p><p>
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</p><p>“Really? I hadn’t noticed.” he pointed out. Logic was quite excitedly reading to Virgil, the cover of his book visible to the two adults. And okay, fine, they were adorable. Virgil had curled up closer to Logic and seemed quite entranced by the nine year old`s voice and the story he was reading.</p><p>
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</p><p>There was a moment’s peace before a wail split the air.</p><p>
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</p><p>“Daaaad! Remus hit me!”</p><p>
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</p><p>Patton sighed and got to his feet to check on Roman, getting him an ice pack to soothe the forming bruise on his shin. He returned with the ‘wounded’ half of Creativity, making him sit with them for a while. Remus joined them, bored on his own.</p><p>
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</p><p>And this was… actually quite nice! The twins were quiet and sitting still and so were Logic and Anxiety. The only noise was Logic reading about Harry’s first adventures at Hogwarts. Deceit was almost tempted to fall asleep.</p><p>
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</p><p>Then Remus started teasing Roman, Roman tackled Remus and they went right back to what they had been doing before.</p><p>
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  <em>Bye Bye, Quiet.<em></em></em>
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</p><p>But oh well. It wasn’t like Deceit wasn’t used to things like this. Virgil being much smaller didn’t stop Remus from fighting him so the dark sides’ common room was rarely quiet.</p><p>
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</p><p>The rest of their visit continued similarly. Roman and Remus kept playing and fighting while Logan managed to get through a good portion of his book, unbothered or ignorant to the fact that Virgil had fallen asleep on his shoulder.</p><p>
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  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I'm in the process of transferring my fanfics from tumblr to ao3! Come find me @ashrain5 :)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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